Charlotte messenger. [volume] (Charlotte, Mecklenburg Co., N.C.) 1882-18??, 1887-03-05


Death is not destruction. but harvest
ing-the gathering from fields of mortal
tillage ripe fruits in their season. And
why then should our harvest feast be
sad over garnered Immortality Why
should this sweetly tolling bell, filling
their troubled earthly airs with gentle
sound, so startle and appal the trustful
spirit7 Dye sad mourners over beloved
graves, that by reason of bereavement
can hardly find in your hearts this day
to be grateful, and to whom our hymn
of thanksgiving hath the seeming of
requiem for the Gead God ST. ensthen
your faith so to behold this mysterious
thing in a light from heaven, that its
dark veil shall seem transparent, and a
face with soft eyes look forth loving and
bright as the face of an angel.
Death is not Instruction. Death is
net even decay Death is harvesting!
Hear We this, o disconsolate heartsl Ye
parents from whese household sweet
children have been rudely parted, hear
We this: 1.-THE Beloved hath gone down
into his garden to gather liliesm Yc
children who have lost reverend parents.
and whose life is chilled in the shadow
of that dread thing-orphanage-hcar
We this: ''As shock of corn cometh in
in his season." so are matured souls
gathered to the garner of God.
Death is harvesting; and the design OF
the harvest is the preservation OF tire
grain. The phrase "cometh in" is rem
dered literally in the margin ''as-
cendeth," having reference to the situa-
ton of the eastern gamers on some hill
top. unto which the gathered corn was
borne from the lowlands with the glad
songs of the reapers. And all this is
inetaphorical of the joy and glory of the
risen Immortality. as removed from
earthly trials and advanced to high and
heavenly ministries.
With death end all processes of TIL
lage. No longer the plough and the
pruning knife, the driving wind and
rain. Henceforth only the serenely
sheltered garner. We attempt no dis
course on this analogy. 1t is trancen-
dent to our experience. and therefore TO
our understanding. Eye hath not seen,
nor ear heard, nor heart OF man con-
ceived, the bright reality. But eye
hath seen and ear heard all the fairest
Kings wherewith we strive to image the
Unseen and Eternal-gloves, gardens.
green fields, flowers. fruits, sunny foun-
tains, temples. palaces, thrones. dia-
dems, triumphs-such things in their
very fulness of glory we have seen on
earth. These things are indeed part OF
the tiIlage-accessories of an economy
unto which pertain the harrow and the
pruning knife, tribulation and anguish.
And it were folly out of such things to
form images of the condition of fruits
and flowers gathered to manifest the
glory of the great Husbandman in the
city of God.
This much only can we understand.
that the risen spirit is advanced at death
not simply to frames of intense rapture,
but to spheres of transcendent usefulness
in the kingdom of God. And as we re-
joice over the value and uses of our Sc
cured harvests, so does all heaven exu't,
as things precious unto God. over the
spirits of just men made perfect in glory.
And as angel-reapers gather them and
bear them upward in flaming chariots
along yon highway of sapphires unto the
heart and throne of the Eternal Father,
heaven will open wide its Joyful gates,
and all the shining creatures that stani
before God strike their harps to the an
them of the great harvest-home, because
perfected man cometh to his end "ss a
shock of corn cometh in in his seasonl |"
-fRev. Charles Wadsworth. d. d.